Bridgeton celebrates Mexican culture on Cinco de Mayo

View full sizeMembers of Bridgeton High School's Latin American Club perform a Mexican folk dance during Bridgetonâs celebration of Cinco de Mayo on Sunday.
Staff Photo by Joe Warner

BRIDGETON — Bridgeton’s Cinco de Mayo celebration is becoming quite the tradition, with the sixth annual installment on Sunday attracting patrons and participants from all over South Jersey and beyond.

Cinco de Mayo commemorates the improbable victory of Mexican forces against an army of French debt collectors sent by the emperor Napoleon III on May 5, 1862.

Celebrated regionally in Mexico near Puebla, the town where the battle took place, Cinco de Mayo has become a yearly holiday in America that celebrates the entirety of Mexican-American heritage.

One of the most popular aspects of the Bridgeton celebration is the horse parade. Members of the riding club Amigos del Caballo (Friends of Horses) came down from their base of operations in Elizabeth City.

“We come here to support our friends,” said Jose Acosta, president of the club which is a regular fixture at Latin-American cultural events, and has members across New Jersey and other states.

As they are every year, the horses were fantastic, and with the riders dressed in traditional vaquero style, they were a striking representation of the larger than life festivities going on all around them.

Elizabeth Ortiz, of Odenton, Md., has been riding in similar celebrations for several years now.

“This is my first time in Bridgeton,” she said from atop her mare, Jalina.

While the riders were staging for the horse parade, The Adventureros entertained the throngs with traditional Mexican music.

Not all was celebratory at this year’s event however, as several food vendors were forced to decamp at the behest of the Cumberland County Health Department for a lack of proper mobile vending permits.

Lydia Roma is the proprietor of La Cabana on South Laurel Street. Health Department officials, backed up by Bridgeton police officers, informed Roma that she would have to close her stand and get rid of the food that she had painstakingly prepared in the kitchen at La Cabana.

“They won’t even let me give the food away,” Roma said Sunday afternoon. “I made my food in the restaurant. Now what am I going to do with all of this food?

“I said, ‘give me 20 minutes and I will give all of it away and all of these people could eat!’”

“The vendors are very discouraged,” said Bridgeton City Council President Gladys Lugardo-Hemple. “They have restaurant licenses.... Now all of the vendors are going to leave and may not come back next year.”

According to city officials, the health department did not attend last year’s Cinco de Mayo celebration, and so many of those who returned this year to sell food were uninformed of proper procedures.

A part of that procedural protocol is obtaining pre-approval from the city and county health department, along with a mobile vending permit, to sell food outside at the event.

There were reportedly safety concerns about some of the vendors, who may not have had proper sanitary equipment or temperature control capabilities. There were also some vendors who came down from New York and other places who had not signed up with the city and acquired the requisite approval to vend on the street.

However, even those who have storefronts and restaurant licenses a few hundred yards from where they set up to sell were forced to cease their operations.

“A lot of vendors thought they could come on the day of the event and sell food.... They must all be pre-approved by the city," Mayor Albert Kelly explained.

“It wouldn’t be fair to those businesses who did go through the process.... We have to do things right.”

But for hungry patrons looking to enjoy some traditional Mexican food and support local businesses, the decision to shut down the vendors seemed excessive.

“If (the health department) felt so strongly about having a permit that they come and close them down, they should have taken the initiative to contact the vendors on the list,” said Maria Perez of Vineland.

“People came from all over to set up their stalls, and now the woman from the health department wants them to throw all of that food in the trash. She wouldn’t even let them donate it!”